White Elephant
By Tony Meneses
Research Packet
By Christine Scarfuto
University of Iowa
Spring, 2009
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Table of Contents
Introduction…………………………………………………..2
A Brief History of the Western Circus……………………….3
When the Circus comes to town………………………………6
Going “to see the circus”……………………………………..10
Technology and the Circus……………………………………11
Unfamiliar Terms from the Text………………………………13
Pictures and Lithographs……………………………………...14
Bibliography…………………………………………………..18
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Introduction
The following probably isn’t your typical research packet. After talking with both Tony
and Brandon, I decided to put together something short and sweet that would give each of you a
feel of the world of the play. Since the circus is ultimately what brings each of the characters and
storylines together, I’ve done a bit of research on the circus and included a list of definitions and
some pictures. This is all designed to help you understand the mystery, majesty, and amazement
that the circus brought with it wherever it went during the early 1900s. If you have any questions
about any of this information or if you would like to take a look at the books I used to compile
this research, just let me know. Enjoy!
Circus Poster, circa 1919
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A Brief History of the Western Circus
Ancient Rome (Below, the Circus Maximus of Ancient Rome)
The origin of the circus dates back to Ancient
Rome, when the circus was a building used for
the exhibition of horse and chariot races,
equestrian shows, staged battles, and displays
of acrobats, jugglers, and trained animals. The
seats were built in a crescent ring, with those
of lower rank sitting in the lower seats. The
word “circus” has its origins in the Greek word “kirkos,” meaning “circle or ring.”
Interestingly, the circus was the only public spectacle in which the men and women were
not separated. The first circus ever built in Rome was called the Circus Maximus, and
was located in between the Palestine and Aventine hills. After Rome fell, this type of
large scale circus died out for hundreds of years. Scholars speculate this was because
Europe lacked the large animals for this type of spectacle. However, the circus was kept
alive on a smaller scale—shows performed by travelling gypsies and animal trainers
nostalgic for the days of ancient Rome linked the ancient circus with the modern one.
The Modern Circus of England and France
The Modern Circus was born in the late 18th Century. Philip Astley of England and
Antonio Franconi of France are thought to be the co-creators of the Modern Circus.
Astley’s “Ampitheater of Equestrian Arts” first opened on January 9, 1768. The circus
featured a circular arena with tiers of seats, and equestrian and acrobatic acts. Franconi
associated with Astley, who opened an equestrian school in Paris. Franconi and Astley
together founded the Cirque Olympique, a popular equestrian show in France at the time.
The American Circus
In the United States, the first modern circus opened in 1793 with a performance by John
Bill Rickets from the Hughes Royal Circus in London. This circus also featured
equestrian and acrobatic acts. George Washington was seen at a performance of this
circus three months after it opened. In the Americas of the first two decades of the 19th
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century, The Circus of Pepin and Breschard toured from Montreal to Havana, building
circus theatres in many of the cities they visited. Later the establishments of Purdy,
Welch & Co., and of van Amburgh gave a wider popularity to the circus in the United
States. In 1825 Joshuah Purdy Brown was the first circus owner to use a large canvas tent
for the circus performance. In 1825, Joshua Purdy Brown was the first circus owner to
use a large canvas tent for performances.
P.T. Barnum and the Ringling Brothers
The American circus was revolutionized by P. T. Barnum and William Cameron
Coup. In 1871, P.T. Barnum lent financial backing to a small travelling circus run by
William Cameron Coup. Together they launched P. T. Barnum's Museum, Menagerie &
Circus, a traveling combination of animal and human oddities. The exhibition of humans
as a freak show or sideshow was thus an American invention. Coup and Barnum were
also the first circus entrepreneurs to use circus trains to transport their show from town to
town, and the first to introduce the multi-ring circus. Barnum's chief competitor was
James Bailey, who had teamed with James Cooper in the 1860s to create the Cooper and
Bailey Circus.
Barnum and Bailey's shows combined in the early 1880s. Following Barnum's
death, his circus merged with that of James Anthony Bailey, and travelled to Europe as
Barnum & Bailey "Greatest Show On Earth" where it toured from 1897 to 1902,
impressing other circus owners with its large scale, its touring techniques including the
tent and circus train and the combination of circus acts, zoological exhibition and the
freak show. This format was adopted by European circuses at the turn of the 20th
century. Also in the early 1880s, the Ringling brothers started a small travelling circus
which grew rapidly, and with the help of the railways, soon became the largest travelling
show of their time. In 1907, the Ringling Brothers bought out the Barnum and Bailey
circus (though they ran their shows separately until 1919). On March 29, 1919,
"Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows" debuted at Madison Square
Garden in New York City. The posters declared, "The Ringling Bros. World's Greatest
Shows and the Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth are now combined into one
record-breaking giant of all exhibitions."
The circus was a huge success through the Roaring 20s. There was a decrease in
popularity during the Great Depression, but the circus picked up in popularity again in
the early 1940s, when FDR gave the circus special dispensation to use the rails to operate
in spite of travel restrictions imposed during World War II. However, as TV and cinema
became more popular after WWII, circus popularity began to decline. The Ringling
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Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus gave its last performance under the big top in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 16, 1956, and an article in LIFE magazine said that "a
magical era had passed forever".
The Contemporary Circus
In the 1960s and 1970s, people began to lose interest in the circus all together.
However, there were a few traditional circuses that managed to survive, including The
Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, The Big Apple Circus, Circus Circus in
Las Vegas, Circus Krome in Munich, and Circus Royale from Australia. However, much
more popular today are the circuses that were influenced by the performing arts
movement in the 1970s. These circuses use no animals, and draw from both
contemporary culture and circus history. The most popular of these is Cirque du Soliel,
formed in Quebec in 1984.
Menagerie Bill, circa 1920
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The Circus Comes to Town!
As White Elephant implies, when the circus came to town in the early 1900s, it would
shut a town down. The circus was a massive event, looked forward to months in advance by
people of all ages. Below is a description of exactly what would happen when the circus came to
town, with information excerpted largely from The Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the
Big Top by Janet M. Davis. If you are interested in reading more from this book, please see
Christine.
Preparing for the Circus’s Arrival
Months before the circus would arrive, people knew it was coming: scores of “advance
men” and billposters had already plastered all over dull barns, storefronts, and saloons with
thousands of vivid lithographs of wild animals and scantily clad performers emblazoned in
splashes of peacock blue, orange, molten red, yellow, grass green, plum, and gold to advertise
the upcoming show. In 1892, Adam Forepaugh’s circus, for one, announced its impending
presence in Philadelphia by mummifying an eight-story building with 4,938 lithographs, in
addition to pasting thousands of other posters around the city. In detail, local newspapers eagerly
chronicled the circus’s movement, along with complete information about its arrival time.
(Below are two examples of circus advertisements seen in newspapers. See the section on
Lithographs and Billposters for images of both.)
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P.T. Barnum’s Circus Advertisement, 1857
Wallace Porter’s Circus Advertisement, 1916
Shutting Down the Town
Giant, nomadic tent cities were set up by the circus workers the night/early morning before
circus day. On “Circus Day” (as it was called in newspapers, memoirs, and show programs
across the nation), shops closed their doors, schools canceled classes, and factories shut down. In
1907 the Board of Education in Bridgeport, CT voted to close the schools on Circus Day, and
children in Paterson, NJ successfully lobbied school authorities to dismiss classes. Special trains
offering discounted “excursion” fares transported rural circus-goers living within a fifty-mile
radius of the show grounds. Roads became thick with people, horses, and wagons. Farmers
traveled by horse and wagon twenty to forty miles and spent scant cash on novelty items like
popcorn, cotton candy, and pink lemonade. In 1904, a newspaper in the mill town of Ashland,
Wisconsin near the shores of Lake Superior noted the circus’s impact: “All the roads brought in
large train loads of people who came here to attend the circus and many people arrived last
evening. All the mills on this side of the bay stopped work today noon and almost all business is
at a standstill and everyone is taking in the circus.” The railroad circus even overwhelmed large
cities. When Barnum & Bailey opened its annual season in New York City on March 24, 1905,
the route book reported that all programs were “packed,” and many were turned away. The next
day, there was an immense “crush” at the doors, when huge crowds were refused entry at the
already overflowing arena. Also, in 1898, the Ringling Bros. Circus virtually shut down New
Orleans. According to the Daily Picayune, “Last night the Ringling Bros.’Circus came near
depopulating the city. It looked as if everybody had gone to the big show. If you wanted to see
anybody you only had to look through the crowd, for they were all there.”
Circus Day!
On Circus Day, thousands of spectators spilled into the streets to watch the free parade.
Barnum & Bailey’s New York City parade in 1891 had 400 horses, 16 elephants, 1,000 circus
performers, and copious animals from the menagerie. In 1904, a filmmaker captured brief,
grainy images of Barnum & Bailey’s parade in Waterloo, Iowa, on celluloid: thick crowds,
jiggling dromedaries, zebra herds, a forty-horse hitch, a military band, intricate, gilded “cage”
wagons, each housing panting feline predators, smiling, waving women dressed in gauzy,
kimono-like gowns atop the elephants, and a calliope at the rear of this moving expanse. Long,
winding lines at the ticket wagon greeted audience members who had not purchased their tickets
in advance. Warren S. Patrick, treasurer of the Walter L. Main circus, remarked that selling
8,000-9,000 tickets in forty minutes was tough on his hands: “My mental calculation is
invariably right; but now and then my fingers, after severe strain, may drop one or two quarters
too many or too little.” Along the noisy midway, vendors sold lemonade, palm frond fans,
sausages, and roasted peanuts. Midway men would beckon with an “oily tongue” to get
audiences to play games for a chance at cheap prizes. An hour before each big-top production,
masses of people gathered at the sideshow tent lined with colorful banners depicting the Fat
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Lady, the Skeleton Man, the Dog-Faced Boy, and the others inside. A velvety-voiced talker lured
patrons to part with a dime and come inside during the “blow off,” a tantalizing outdoor display
of seminude women flexing their muscles, a “living picture gallery” tattoo artist, or perhaps a
rousing rendition of skin snapping by the Elastic Skin Man. During the “blow-off”, the talkers
even quietly intimated that audiences might see nude women at the adjacent “Gentleman Only”
“cooch” show.
Once inside the menagerie tent attached to the big top, spectators saw big cats and bears
lounge, eat chunks of meat, and pace in their cages, while llamas, peacocks, and educated pigs
and horses fidgeted nearby. A grand, parade-like entry processional of animals and performers
marked the start of the main program. Approximately twenty to twenty-five other acts followed.
An international constellation of players worked simultaneously on three rings and two stages.
At a typical Ringling Bros. show, performers heralded from twenty-two countries, and fifty
clows cavorted around the serious acts in vignettes of intentional chaos. Mark Twain’s Huck
Finn reflects on the circus as he watched big-top feats in small town Arizona: “It was a powerful
fine sight; I never see anything so lovely…the men looking ever so tall and airy and
straight…and every lady’s rose-leaf dress flapping soft and silky around her hips, and she
looking like the most loveliest parasol.”
The mammoth circus audience was also part of the spectacle, as strangers from all over
would stream into a small town. Newspapers focused on the crowd as a defining element of
Circus Day. In 1890 one journalist described the “show” of nearly ten thousand people from
around a county filing into Barnum & Bailey’s big top: “It was the biggest crowd of people ever
in one tent in the city. A great sea of faces stretched out in every direction, representing all of the
country thirty miles around. To see so many people was the best part of the ‘performance.’”
The Circus Day Parade, Ames, IA, 1950
Unloading the camels on circus day in Ames, 1950
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A Circus Advertisement from the Ames Tribune, circa the early 1900s
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Going “to see the elephant”: Exotic Animals in the Circus
Elephants have long been a part of the circus, largely because they are intelligent enough to be
trained to perform acts. Colonial animal menageries provided audiences with glimpses of
faraway places long before the exhibition of foreign people became a standard part of the circus.
Before the advent of the exotic animal trade in the middle of the nineteenth century, speculative
sea captains often purchased or traded wild animals in Africa and Asia, and sold them to
fledgling U.S. menageries. The “Lyon of Barbary” (from the Barbary Coast of Africa) arrived in
the British North American colonies in 1716; in 1721 came the first camel, in 1733 the first polar
bear, and in 1786 the first leopard. The first elephant landed in New York City in 1796 on
Captain Jacob Crowninshield’s ship from Bengal. The animal menageries were exhibited in
barns, inn-yards, and stables, or any other public venue where elephants could be hidden from
spectators. The Crowninshield elephant, for one, attracted thousands of customers, including
President John Adams, “to see the elephant.” In fact, “to see the elephant” soon became an
important part of the American lexicon, a powerful synonym for experiencing battle used
commonly during the Mexican War and the Civil War. The menagerie business proliferated in
the nineteenth century. Although proprietors always marketed their exhibits as educational, many
were hastily assembled. Although they produced informational pamphlets on their animals as
early as the 1840s, their attempts at pedagogy paled in comparison to those of the turn-of-thecentury railroad showmen, who consistently published colorful, lavishly illustrated programs
carefully describing the origins and habitat of each animal in the menagerie.
Jumbo, a large, African Bush Elephant sold
P.T. Barnum in 1882 for the circus
Elephants from Cole Brothers Circus parade to
through downtown Los Angeles, 1953
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Technology and the Circus
A large part of appeal for the circus (as you can probably see throughout White Elephant)
was being able to experience exotic, foreign cultures and animals in your own backyard.
Advances in transportation at the end of the nineteenth century made this possible. Below are
some forms of technology that made the modern circus possible.
The Wagon Show
When circuses first started travelling across America in the late 1700s, they travelled by wagon.
These travelling shows came to be known as “wagon shows.” However, wagons could not
transport many circus workers or animals, and when the transcontinental railroad was completed,
the railroad circus soon became more popular. Wagons were bumpy, and so circus workers got
less rest between stops. Also, when the railroad circus increased in popularity, the wagon shows
came to be known as “mud shows” for obvious reasons. Wild West shows also traveled around
the country by wagon during this time, the most popular of which was Buffalo Bill’s Wild West
Show that featured horses, shooting, and fights between cowboys and American Indians.
Cole Bros. Circus Wagon, circa 1935
Wagon from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show
The Transcontinental Railroad
The First Transcontinental Railroad is the name of the railroad completed in 1869 between
Council Bluffs, Iowa and Sacramento, California that connected other railways going
respectively to the Atlantic and Pacific to establish the first coast-to-coast U.S. transcontinental
rail unit. The railroad transported the larger, three-ring circus shows, and had much wider
cultural exposure than the small, plodding, horse-drawn wagon shows. Little wagon circuses
traveled regionally, primarily in rural areas, while the biggest railroad outfits (possessing over
fifty railroad cars) such as Barnum & Bailey, the Ringling Bros., and Adam Forepaugh & Sells
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Bros. bridged rural and urban, roaring across the entire nation in a single season. Railroad
circuses typically employed over 1,000 people and hundreds of animals.
The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus railroad car, 1903
Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey car, circa 1950
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Unfamiliar Terms from the Text
Strongwoman (p. 2): Strongwoman refers to either a woman
performing feats of strength in a show or circus, or a woman who
competes in strength athletics. Traditionally, strongwomen have had a
special appeal, as women involved in demonstrated feats of strength
were exceptions. (Left: Charmion (1875 - 1949), vaudeville
strongwoman and trapeze artist)
Circus Day Parade (p.3): The free parade held typically on the first day a circus was in town.
All of the performers and animals in the circus would participate in the parade.
Lithograph (p. 32): a print or poster made by printing from a plane surface (as a smooth
stone or metal plate) on which the image to be printed is ink-receptive and the blank area
ink-repellent. (See Pictures and Lithographs)
“the big top” (p. 35): The biggest tent in early-20th century circuses, where the circus itself
took place.
Drifters (p. 49): vagrants or wanderers who have no established residence or visible means of
support.
Gizzards Pie (p. 59): pie made of a portion of the esophagus of either a bird or a reptile that
contains ingested grit and is used to grind up ingested food before it is transferred to the stomach.
Pinkerton (p. 60): a member of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, a private U.S.
security guard and detective agency established by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. Pinkerton had
become famous when he foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later
hired Pinkerton agents for his personal security during the Civil War. Pinkerton's agents
performed services ranging from security guarding to private military contracting work.
Silk Charmeuse (p. 81): Charmeuse is a lightweight fabric woven with a satin weave, where the
warp threads cross over three or more of the backing threads. The front side of the fabric has a
satin finish- lustrous and reflective- whereas the back has a dull finish. It can be made of silk, or
a synthetic lookalike such as polyester. It differs from plain satin in that charmeuse is softer and
lighter in weight. It tears easily.
Billposter (p. 93): a person who posts bills and advertisements.
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Canvasman (p. 123): Men who typically helped assemble circus tents. (Right: A canvasman with the
Ringling Bros. Circus, 1897)
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Circus Pictures and Lithographs
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Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus Lithograph, circa early 1920s
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Circus lithograph, 1898
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Circus calliope, lithograph by Gibson & Co., 1872
Cole Bros. Lithograph, 1935-1940
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Bibliography
“Circus Photos and Illustrations.” Circus Historical Society. www.circushistory.org
Davis, Janet M. The Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the American Big Top. University
of North Carolina Press: North Carolina, 2002.
Day, Cathy. The Circus in Winter. Harcourt Brace: Florida, 2004.
“The History of the Ringling Brothers Circus.” The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey
Circus Official Website. www.ringling.org
Merriam-Webster Dictionary. www.merriam-webster.com
The Oxford English Dictionary. www.oed.com
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